Hangul Syllable Dwis

Read it as “back” or “after,” with the following word deciding which.

뒷문 means a rear door; 뒷일 means what follows or results. In 뒷모양, the reading can be literal rear view or figurative how things turn out. Bare 뒤 is the base word; choosing 뒷- is a Korean spelling decision, not an English shortcut.

뒷 was not invented separately: Hangul was created for writing Korean more easily. The base word 뒤 is attested in 1447; as of 2026, no defensible first attestation for the exact modern block 뒷 was found. The linking ㅅ has a Middle Korean genitive connection, then became mainly a compound marker. Unicode's 1996 date records computer encoding, not the sign's origin.